Tag Archives: Haunted House

Magnolia Elementary School – Haunted House

The following informant is a 20 year old college student from Upland. Here she is describing a haunted house that is behind her elementary school, Magnolia Elementary School. This is a transcription of our conversation, she is identified as GA and I am identified as K:

GA: There is this haunted house at my school, um… by the playground, and some kids would be like talking about how there was someone who like died, who lived there, and like when it was like night at the school, it would be like haunted and stuff like that. You could hear weird noises and things would fall or move, things like that.

K: Did you ever go and explore the house?

GA: No I was too scared, but some of my friends went, we were in like 5th grade, and they heard and saw things. It was mostly kids in my grade wanting to explore and they told me about it because it was located right behind us/

K: Did anything happen to them?

GA: No, nothing bad, they just got really freaked out, maybe they did encounter the spirit of the guy that lived there

K: Did you believe what they told you about the house?

GA: Yes and no, I am always a little skeptical when it comes to ghost stories, but it did frighten me enough not to go to the house.

Context: She told me this while we were sitting at her dining room table one evening.

Thoughts:

I too am similar to GA, in the sense that I can be a little skeptical of ghost stories and haunted houses, however I think it is important to point out that regardless of the fact that she did not fully believe the house was haunted she still avoided it, almost like better safe than sorry. She did not have to accept the supernatural to understand that something weird was going on.

Halloween at Stanford Campus

Background information:

The Stanford area in Silicon Valley located in California is beautiful in a myriad of different ways. It is close to nature, has beautiful architecture, and is an extremely environmentally conscious and friendly location. I grew up in the Palo Alto area which neighbors Stanford and would frequently visit Stanford Campus as my friends lived there because their parents are professors at the University. As such, a memorable tradition in my childhood, along with many others’ in my neighborhood, is celebrating Halloween walking around Stanford Campus at night.

 

Main piece:

Since I moved to Silicon Valley when I was almost six years old, my friends and I would always celebrate Halloween by dressing up and trick or treating around the houses located on Stanford’s outer residential campus. Where I am from, Stanford’s campus was known to be a fantastic place to trick or treat, as many people went all out with their Halloween decorations and truly created a Halloween wonderland for both children and adults to enjoy. As my friends and I frequented Stanford’s campus every Halloween, we became familiar with the various decorations around the campus, noting around five different haunted houses and several different pumpkin carving exhibits. This might only be a locally known event, but it truly shaped my Halloween experience when I was growing up, with its great Halloween spirit, creative decorations, and extreme vibrancy.

 

 

Personal thoughts:

I cannot imagine spending Halloween in a different location when I was growing up because each Halloween had such a memorable impact to me. Not only was I able to spend time with friends, but I also had the opportunity to engage in classic Halloween traditions such as haunted houses, pumpkin carvings, and extravagantly decorating the houses around Stanford campus. Thus, I am profusely grateful that I was able to have such pleasant Halloween experiences as a child that I will be sure to share with others.

Haunted House in the Philippines

The 21-year-old informant was born in the Philippines, but moved to the U.S. (Hawaii) at the age of 9. As ghosts and other mythical creatures play a large role in Filipino culture, the informant recounts personal stories and myths that she encountered during her time in the Philippines.

Informant: “When I was little, I was with my brother and we were at my grandma’s house, and we had a babysitter with us, so it was just the 3 of us. I was like, 3 or 4 years old maybe? I think it was a 5-story house– it was a pretty big house, which people were saying it was so big that it wasn’t as inhabited as it should be, so then like, ghosts started coming in and like, taking over the space or whatever.

But um, we’re just playing and then we heard like, chains on the stairs, just like (*makes a few thumping noises with her hand*). It kept stepping on the stairs and we heard chains just clanking on the floor, and as a child I was just like, ‘Fuck is that?’ And there’s a foot on the stairs, and it was all bloody. It was literally just a foot, and it had chains around it– all bloody. And it just kept stepping, not really going anywhere.

And then, I talked to my brother, and up ’til this day, he’s like, ‘No, I swear I saw it,’ and he was 7 years old then? Maybe I was 4… I was 3 or 4.”

Collector: “Was it like, a solid foot?”

Informant: “Ya, it was just one foot. I forgot what that house used to be… like, what used to be there before the house was built… but I know there was some mystery there.

And there was another one… like, the house was pretty haunted. I heard stories that–well, when we weren’t there–my other cousins lived right across that house, and her grandma would say that she would see like, a white lady just walking across the rooftop, and no one was there ’cause everyone was like, in Hawaii or like, the mainland or whatever… So that was another one of the stories.”

The Legalized Haunted House in New York

“They had this family who lived there and they caught on pretty quick that it was a haunted house, so they got along fine with the ghost. They claimed it was kinda like a friendly ghost. They said it like, did little chores for them and stuff, like folded laundry and stuff when they weren’t expecting. Like kinda weird things, but also like, not necessarily annoying things, so they put up with it. So, eventually they decided that they needed to sell the house because they wanted to move or they needed the money or something, so they found a buyer for the house and they signed up all the paperwork and the buyer moved in. Then, after a few weeks I want to say, a couple of months maybe, they slowly picked up on the fact that the house was haunted or they suspected it was. So, they called up the original owners and they said ‘hey, so, did you guys ever think the house was haunted?’ and they were like, ‘oh yeah, that’s like, so and so the ghost,’ like ‘we know all about it,’ like, ‘ isn’t he the greatest?’ and they were like, ‘no, we don’t want a haunted house.’ So, they brought them to court claiming that they had sold the house under false pretenses. And first off, the judge was like, ‘this is an absurd case. There is no way I am ruling in favor of this. You can’t just claim the house is haunted and then, you know, try and get a refund for it.’ And they were like ‘fine, fine, fine.’ So, the attorney for the people who had bought the house went ‘okay judge’… in the most classic horror movie plot ever… they were like ‘okay, if you can spend the night in the house and come out and say with 100% certainty that the house is not haunted, we will drop the case.’ The judge couldn’t do it or refused to do it, and so agreed to rule the house is legally haunted and yeah, they got their money back for the house. And now, it is New York state law that if your house is haunted or you suspect it to be haunted, you have to disclose it in any sales of real estate.”

The informant’s story is based in his hometown in New York, with the “haunted house” being down the street from him. According to the informant, the town is partially know for the big, Victorian mansion down by the Hudson River that became the first legally haunted house in the world. This house is also still residential, with people living in it currently who clearly have no problem with it being haunted. While the house was already expensive because it was an old, Victorian mansion on the Hudson River, the fact that it is “haunted” has drawn many people to it, ultimately increasing the asking price when it has been for sale.

At the time that this happened, many people began to believe that ghosts were real because even the government was supporting their existence. However, the informant cannot say for sure if he believes it to be haunted because he has never been inside, but he does like to frequent the house on Halloween with his friends.

Also, the informant’s brother has a friend whose parents are trying to decide if they really do need to disclose that their house may be haunted because they merely suspect it themselves. Even though the law states that they have to, they are afraid it will make the house lose its value potentially and are considering not doing it.

The informant relayed this to me while sitting at a table outside one of the school buildings on the USC campus. The two of us have been friends for over a year.

Having never been to the house or to New York in general, I cannot say whether it was the first legalized haunted house or if it is even haunted. However, in regards to having to disclose if your house is haunted or not, I have heard that this is not the only case of this happening and is a much more frequent case than people would think.

In regards to the family deciding whether to comply with the law or not, they are a good example of what beliefs in folklore can effect. For instance, for those who do not want to believe, the house will immediately be taken out of consideration. For those who are extremely afraid of ghosts, the same will happen for them. That being said, that narrows the range of buyers down, which might have a strong change on being able to sell the house quickly or not, even though the current homeowners are not positive if it is haunted or not in the first place.

Haunted House

The informant told me of his haunted house in Eastern Oregon.

“So, my house is haunted, um, I guess I’ll describe a specific spooky encounter that happened one night, probably like two years ago, first of all this is just a side note, I talk and scream in my sleep a lot and I think it’s because I’m possessed, and my sisters are always scared whenever we’re all in the house because I scream, but anyways this one time one night I was sleeping and then it’s like 3 o’clock in the morning and my door opens and it’s my dad in his underwear and holding a shotgun and he’s like “Are you okay?” and I was like “yeah what’s going on?” and he’s like “nothing, just making sure you’re safe.” And then the next morning he tells me what was going on, which was he and my mom were in their upstairs room and they heard this knocking on our front door, and they were curious about that, and they heard footsteps right below them, so my dad got a shotgun and he started combing the house looking for something and they heard voices and this supernatural shit, um, and then the next morning, when I woke up, my mom was also there, making sure i was safe and then she pointed out to me this guest room that we have which is down the hall from me, and the doors were wide open, like this door chair was overturned and there were these pillows out with an impression of body like laying there, um, yeah. So that’s what happened. Yeah.”

Do you know why the house is haunted?

“There were some renovations once so maybe that disturbed some spirits. I don’t know.”

Analysis:

The real life experience that the informant and his parents had confirm his belief in the supernatural and especially ghosts. What was interesting was that the haunting of the house was accepted as a way of life, and something that the family has not done anything to change.